Outspoken Tories play blame game over party’s crisis

Ron Liepert, a former PC cabinet minister, said his former colleague Ted Morton carries some of the blame for the party's current crisis. Liepert was reacting to an opinion piece Morton wrote in Saturday's Herald, arguing three key factors led to the downfall of Alison Redford, including her failure to win over her own caucus.

Photograph by: Gavin Young
, Calgary Herald

Ted Morton’s characterization of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party as a “train wreck” on the verge of collapse prompted a strong rebuke from former caucus colleague Ron Liepert, who said Morton himself carries some of the blame for the Tories’ current crisis.

“Some of his criticisms of Redford are probably fair and I wouldn’t disagree. But he’s got a lot of nerve being the guy to make those comments,” said Liepert.

Morton — an ex-finance minister and two-time leadership candidate — said three key factors led to the downfall of Alison Redford, who announced her resignation this week amid mounting pressure from the public and within the PC party.

He said Redford failed to win over her own caucus, drove the party deeper into deficit to pay for campaign promises and alienated Tory stalwarts by introducing new accounting rules.

The four-decade-old Tory dynasty now faces a perilous future and lacks a leader to turn the party’s prospects around, Morton said in an opinion piece published in Saturday’s Herald.

“Financially exhausted, ideologically divided and now missing a huge chunk of its old rural/conservative base that has gone over to Wildrose — why would an intelligent, successful outsider agree to take over such a train wreck?”

His comments sparked outrage from Liepert, who served eight years as a Tory MLA and held the education, health and energy portfolios during his career in Alberta politics.

“Ted Morton is lecturing us about the PC party and its principles. I think it’s time for him to take a look in the mirror and talk a bit about what he did to the party.”

Morton’s decision not to support former leadership candidate Jim Dinning back in 2006 — and subsequent disagreements with Ed Stelmach while he was premier — contributed to the Tories’ current spate of troubles, Lipert argues.

“He decided it was going to be anything but Jim Dinning and ended up throwing his support to Stelmach — but then never worked well with Stelmach and his people and ended up being one of the reasons Stelmach resigned,” he said.

“It irritates me. When we were sitting in caucus together, he always had to lecture us. And here’s Ted lecturing Albertans again.”

Morton’s opinions may in part be fuelled by sour grapes, given the fact he lost the leadership race to Redford in 2011 and eventually his Tory seat, said Duane Bratt, a professor in the department of policy studies at Mount Royal University.

But his assessment of the departed premier and the PC party carry a degree of legitimacy within certain Tory factions that Liepert can’t simply dismiss, he added.

“Morton is staying true to his principles. In the 2012 election — when most of the fiscal conservatives fled the PCs to the Wildrose — Ted stayed. That sounds like a loyalist to me,” said Bratt.

Morton could not be reached Saturday to respond to Liepert’s remarks.

Liepert, who retired in 2012, is currently seeking the federal conservative nomination in the newly renamed Calgary Signal Hill riding. If successful, he will oust MP Rob Anders, an outspoken supporter of Morton during the 2011 provincial leadership race.

Liepert doesn’t necessarily believe Morton’s public criticisms are an attempt to unite the more Conservative factions within the party. But any suggestion the provincial Tories are on the verge of a collapse is premature, he said.

“It’s too early to write the obituary. I would never count out the PC party of Alberta.”

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Ron Liepert, a former PC cabinet minister, said his former colleague Ted Morton carries some of the blame for the party's current crisis. Liepert was reacting to an opinion piece Morton wrote in Saturday's Herald, arguing three key factors led to the downfall of Alison Redford, including her failure to win over her own caucus.

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